‘You—­him!’ she said, in the tremendous compression of her contempt.

She laughed.  The world is upside down—­a world without light, or pointing finger, or affection for special favourites, and therefore bereft of all mysterious and attractive wisdom, a crazy world, a corpse of a world—­if this be true!

But it can still be disbelieved.

He stood by her dejectedly, and she sent him flying with a repulsive, ‘Leave me!’ The youth had too much on his conscience to let him linger.  His manner of going smote her brain.

Was it credible?  Was it possible to think of Alvan wounded?—­the giant laid on his back and in the hands of the leech?  Assuredly it was a mockery of all calculations.  She could not conjure up the picture of him, and her emotions were merely struck and stunned.  If this be true!

But it can be resolutely disbelieved.

We can put it before Providence to cleanse itself of this thing, or suffer the consequence that we now and for ever quit our worship, lose our faith in it and our secret respect.  She heard Marko’s tale confirmed, whispers of leaden import, physicians’ rumours, and she doubted.  She clung insanely to her incredulity.  Laughter had been slain, but not her belief in the invincibility of Alvan; she could not imagine him overthrown in a conflict—­and by a hand that she had taken and twisted in her woman’s hand subduingly!  He, the unerring shot, laid low by one who had never burnt powder till the day before the duel!  It was easier to remain incredulous notwithstanding the gradational distinctness of the whispers.  She dashed her ‘Impossible!’ at Providence, conceived the tale in wilful and almost buoyant self-deception to be a conspiracy in the family to hide from her Alvan’s magnanimous dismissal of poor Marko from the field of strife.  That was the most evident fact.  She ran through delusion and delusion, exhausting each and hugging it after the false life was out.

So violent was the opposition to reason in the idea of Alvans descending to the duel and falling by the hand of Marko, that it cried to be rebutted by laughter:  and she could not, she could laugh no more, nor imagine laughing, though she could say of the people of the house, ’They act it well!’ and hate them for the serious whispering air, and the dropping of medical terms and weights of drugs, which robbed her of what her instinct told her was the surest weapon for combating deception.  Them, however, and their acting she could have with stood enough to silently discredit them through sheer virulence of a hatred that proved them to be duly credited.  But her savage wilfulness could not resist the look of Marko.  She had to yield up her breast to the truth, and stimulate further unbelief lest her loaded heart should force her to run to the wounded lion’s bedside, and hear his reproaches.  She had to cheat her heart, and the weak thing consented to it, loathing her for the imposture.  Seeing Marko too, assured